How long does it take a new water heater to heat up?
alisande
13 years ago
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asolo
13 years agoalisande
13 years agoRelated Discussions
on demand hot water - how long does it take to get hot water?
Comments (3)The time it takes for the hot water to get to your faucets or shower is related to the distance the water has to travel from the hot water source to the sink and the diameter of the hot water building supply pipe (typically 3/4 inch) as well as the feeder pipe to the sink (typically 1/2 inch). A 3/4 inch pipe holds about 8 ounces of water for every 3 feet of pipe. So if your tank (or tankless) unit is 90 feet away from a faucet, you would have to push out about 1.8 gallons of cold water (plus whatever water is in the feeder pipe, a 6 foot section of 1/2 inch pipe holds about 8 ounces of water) before the hot flows. A typical sink faucet will run at 1.5 gallons per minute maximum flow rate - so you are looking at over 1 minute to get hot water in this scenario. With tankless units, there is also a small delay between the time the unit senses water flowing through it (which triggers it to fire) and the time the unit heats the water up to the set temperature. There are 3 ways you can eliminate the long delay. The first is to put a hot water source (tank or tankless unit) closer to the sinks that are far away from the current source. The second way is to use point of use hot water generators under key sinks that you use. These POU units are very small tanks or tankless units designed to service just once sink. The last method is to install a recirculating loop where you constantly circulate hot water through the hot water building supply. I have a Rinnai tankless system that we installed in the basement directly below the master bathroom. From the time I turn on a shower or sink, hot water is flowing within 10 seconds. That was the good news. The bad news was that the kitchen sink and 3 other sinks that we use often are over 120 feet away from the Rinnai tankless units. Just before we finished the house, we discovered that it was taking several minutes to get hot water at the kitchen sink - and that was unacceptable to us. I wound up installing a recirculting loop. This was not the way I would have preferred to do it, but space and venting in the basement on that side of the house was an issue. You could just live with the delay you have - 1 minute isn't that bad. If you decide to fix the delay, I recommend posting some details on the plumbing forum and seeking advice on how best to correct....See Morewhat is a heat pump water heater
Comments (15)If you do a search for heat pump water heaters with the search engine of your choice the information and data is out there and not hard to find on utility websites and manufacturer. If you are comparing electric element to heat pump systems element is 100% efficient and heat pump is 200% on average for units that do not use a condensate drain in use because of unit location. Units on the high setting with a condensate drain and fan cooling are all the way up to 3 units of heat per unit of electricity. 110v units that I have researched usually need a 15amp circuit and 220v a 5-10 amp. take the consumption of heat strips in a furnace compared to a heat pump.. the heat strips really make the house nice and toasty quickly but make the meter outside spin like a CD. A heat pump takes more time to bring things up to temp but the meter spins like an old 33 record. The regular water heater compared to a heat pump heater I would think would be along the same line and would also dehumidify the area that it is located in.. another plus to many people. The longevity of the unit is supposed to be very long compared to a regular tank and elements.. I know they are much more prominent in other countries that have higher prices for utilities and fuel. If gas would have dropped and stuck under 2 a gallon I do not think the smart car and others that are on their way would have arrived for quite a few more years. I think a heat pump water heater is something to look into and keep an eye on. If I do not go geothermal I will be adding one to my system....See Morewater coil heat with relation to water heater usage
Comments (36)Nice price on electricity. I pay at least twice that. Here are some numbers for you, based on your figures: A kilowatt of electricity is about 3,413 BTUs, and is $0.0636, which works out to be 53,660 BTUs per dollar. Electricity is 100% efficient, meaning that there are no combustion losses that go up the chimney at your house. Propane has about 92,000 BTUs per gallon, and is $2.50 gallon, which works out to be about 36,800 BTUs per dollar. Your existing water heater is prolly on the order of 60% efficient, which means that 40% of the BTUs out of a gallon of propane end up going up the chimney, and not in your house. As such, you are getting about 22,000 BTUs per dollar out of it. If you went with a new water heater, such as the Polaris which is 95% efficient, you would be getting about 34,900 BTUs per dollar after combustion losses. Based on your posted information, electricity would be about 65% the cost of propane for heating with a 95% efficiency water heater, and 41% of the cost of propane using your existing water heater. An electric water heater won't work because they donÂt produce enough BTUs to keep up with the demand on the house. But an electric boiler might, depending on the model and how manu BTUs your house requires to keep it warm on the coldest day of the year. An electric boiler will require a lot of electricity, though, prolly on the order of 100 amps. A 200 amp electric service to your house would be the minimum needed to run the electric boiler. You still need to address the ducting losses through your attic. If yours are anything like mine were, that is half the problem right there....See MoreHow much should a new water heater cost?
Comments (23)I live in a pricey Westchester NY suburb and just paid $2000 to install a new AO Smith hot water tank. I shopped around and all three licensed plumbers came in around the same. The guy we picked wasn't the lowest price but my hubby (a surgeon) liked the white hair on his head (read: experience). He was also the only guy who, upon entering our basement with the small stream of water, confidently declared it was a microscopic leak from an obscure spot under the tank. Sure enough, he pulled out a flexible flashlight and with us leaning down with our cheeks to the floor, there it was: a barely perceptible trickle of water. The other two first asked us to make sure it wasn't leaky chimney flashings, groundwater swells, etc. They were also much younger than our plumber by about 15 years! The way the hubby sees it, you pick your plumber like you should pick your surgeon: not someone fresh out of residency but not so old as to be unaware of the latest technology or regulations. So we contributed a couple of hundred to our plumber's retirement fund. Hooray for him and we are really happy with the work he did: new copper fittings and piping, soldered neatly with new gas and water valves placed above the tank and easy to function. We shopped around and went with the person we felt most comfortable with. Oh, and he came on Memorial Day morning to install this so we could have hot water for our family! (The other youngster plumbers were like, No Way.) Now isn't that dedication also worth the extra $? We think so!...See Moreasolo
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